How I discovered a new sauce mix

that everybody just loves !!!

Several weeks ago, I had a pool party for a few friends. It was warm and a perfect day to serve some good eats, but I wanted to keep the menu on the lite side. Yes, there were indeed a few bikini clad ladies lounging around that I knew would appreciate a lite meal kept fun, fresh, and flavorful.

I shredded some chicken that I had prepared in the smoker the day before. This smoked chicken, along with finely sliced and slightly sautéed red onions and tri-colored bell peppers, a shredded three cheese blend, shredded lettuce, and my new secret sauce made for some really tasty wraps perfect for that summer day outdoors.

Everyone wanted the recipe to my new secret sauce. No, not yet.

I tried the sauce on a different group of folks a couple of weeks later. This time, I again used shredded smoked chicken. I wet the chicken slightly with the new secret sauce and then heated up this combination in disposable aluminum containers right on the grill at our tailgate party for the ULL football game. We served the hot smoked chicken on po'boy buns along with additional squirts of the new secret sauce.

Everyone wanted the recipe to my new secret sauce. Not yet.

A third group of folks for tailgating at the Saints game last Sunday brought about the same results. Some shredded, freshly smoked chicken stirred with enough of the sauce to dampen it was heated up in a crock pot. This mixture was offered up to guests with various rolls/wraps, lettuce, tomato, onions, peppers, cheese, and a squirt bottle with the secret sauce. Again, everyone kept asking for the recipe of the sauce I had made. I didn't get that bottle of sauce to come back home with me because one of my friends begged me to keep it.

Finally, my wife brought the Saints tailgate leftovers to her workplace and feed a forth group of people with much the same results. I had to make a bit more of the sauce for her since I had given the tailgate bottle away. Everyone begged her for the secret sauce recipe. She loved it too, but could not tell them what it was, because I had not yet shared the ingredients with her.

Well, I guess the sauce has proven itself to be a hit among Cajuns and non-Cajuns alike, so I'm ready to tell. It's so simple that I'm almost embarrassed to give up the secret.

I wanted to serve a sort of BBQ meal to the pool party guests, but felt that BBQ sauce was just not quite right for the smoked chicken, onion and pepper, cheese and lettuce wraps. Trying to keep it "lite" made me feel that BBQ sauce on this wrap was just too strong a flavor for that particular combo and occasion.

So . . . I tried something I had not done before. I stirred up a 50/50 mix of Kraft Original BBQ Sauce and good old Blue Plate Mayonnaise. It mellowed out the BBQ sauce flavor and added a just-right creamy richness to the wraps.  And it was indeed very tasty!!! 

I think I will use this mix in ways other than just with smoked chicken in the future. Maybe as a dip? Maybe on a fully dressed Roast Beef Po'Boy? Let me know if you are going to try this and what ideas you might have for this really simple, but delightfully tasty sauce.

My wife  insists that I now keep a squeeze bottle of this new secret mix in the fridge :-) 

The Easy Cajun